News Articles

SIA Healthy Workplace Culture for Attracting Top Talent

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:35:40 GMT

Rob Whalen: A Healthy Workplace Culture Is Vital for Attracting Top Talent

Competitive salaries and solid benefits like 401(k) matches matter, but they're no longer enough on their own. In a piece for Staffing Industry Analysts, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen makes the case that workplace culture has become just as critical a differentiator for recruiters trying to attract and retain top talent.

The numbers reveal a real gap: only 20% of employees strongly agree they feel connected to their company's culture, according to Gallup, and employee engagement is at its lowest point in a decade. Whalen points to burnout as a major driver, over half of employees report experiencing it in the past year, often fueled by an entrenched culture of overwork. Even when employees are technically on vacation, a majority still check email or respond to work messages, undercutting the very purpose of time off.

His recommendation for recruiters and HR teams is to treat culture as a measurable strategic priority, not an afterthought, asking whether specific programs and benefits actually move the needle on attracting, retaining, and engaging talent. Flexible benefits like convertible PTO play a role here too, letting employees redirect unused time toward priorities like retirement, student loans, or charitable giving, rather than reinforcing a culture where time off just goes unused.

Read the full piece here: A Healthy Workplace Culture Is Vital for Attracting Top Talent

Learn more today on how PTO Exchange can help your employees access their unused vacation safely and responsibly.

World At Work High Costs Drive Big Shifts

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:28:58 GMT

How High Costs Will Drive Big Shifts in Employee Benefits in 2026

As inflation and surging healthcare costs push benefits prices higher, most employers are set to pass those costs directly onto workers in 2026. In a piece for WorldatWork's Workspan Daily, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen lays out three trends HR and total rewards teams should be watching closely as they head into the new year.

The first is financial stress itself: 77% of U.S. workers say they're stressed about the economy, and 88% of millennial and Gen Z workers carry some form of debt. Whalen points to a clear disconnect, 84% of employees think their employer should be more actively involved in helping with their finances, yet many are instead turning to risky options like 401(k) hardship withdrawals or high-interest payday loans just to get by.

The second trend compounds the first: health benefit costs are projected to rise 6.5% in 2026, the steepest jump since 2010, pushing more employers toward high-deductible plans that shift more risk onto employees right as their ability to absorb it is shrinking. That squeeze is exactly why Whalen's third trend, flexible, personalized benefits, matters so much. With 91% of employees saying they'd be more likely to stay at a company offering benefits tailored to their needs, tools like convertible PTO (letting employees redirect unused time toward retirement, student loans, or HSAs) and earned wage access give HR teams a way to stretch tightening budgets while still meaningfully supporting their people.

Read the full piece here: How High Costs Will Drive Big Shifts in Employee Benefits in 2026

Learn more today on how PTO Exchange can help your employees access their unused vacation safely and responsibly.

HR Daily Advisor Five Trends That Will Define 2026 for HR

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:24:09 GMT

Five Trends That Will Define 2026 for HR Teams

The past few years have thrown employees through one disruption after another, COVID, inflation, the end of remote-work defaults, and now a resumption of student loan payments. In a new piece, PTO Exchange's Rob Whalen lays out five trends he expects will shape how HR teams support their people in 2026.

Rising healthcare costs top the list, 2026 is set to bring the largest single-year cost increase in over a decade, pushing many employees toward high-deductible plans that leave them more exposed financially. That compounds an already-deepening financial anxiety: 86% of employees worry about their finances at work, and total household debt has climbed near $18.6 trillion. Whalen argues this makes holistic financial wellness benefits, help with budgeting, debt reduction, and emergency savings, a must, not a nice-to-have, especially since 81% of employees say they're more likely to stay with employers offering this kind of support.

The remaining trends focus on flexibility. Just 22% of employees use all their available PTO, part of a broader work-life balance crisis fueled by financial stress and anxiety over AI-driven job displacement. Whalen's answer is giving employees real ownership over their benefits, convertible PTO that lets them redirect unused time toward retirement or HSAs, earned wage access to avoid costly emergency borrowing, and more personalized options like mentoring and upskilling support.

Read the full piece here: Five Trends That Will Define 2026 for HR Teams

Learn more today on how PTO Exchange can help your employees access their unused vacation safely and responsibly.

SIA Top Trends Staffing Professionals Will Follow in 2026

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:17:57 GMT

Rob Whalen: Top Trends Staffing Professionals Will Follow in 2026

Employee expectations keep shifting, and 2026 is bringing a fresh set of pressures for staffing professionals to navigate. In a new piece for Staffing Industry Analysts, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen breaks down the trends he expects to define the year, from financial stress to burnout to the growing demand for personalized benefits.

Financial wellness is front and center. Two-thirds of employees say financial stress is hurting both their work and personal life, and with healthcare costs set to see their biggest annual jump in 15 years, that pressure is only intensifying. Whalen also points to burnout as a related risk, nearly 80% of employees fail to use all their PTO, and rapid AI adoption is adding new anxiety around job security and the pressure to constantly upskill.

His core recommendation for staffing professionals: help clients move away from static, one-size-fits-all benefits toward genuine flexibility. That means things like convertible PTO, which lets employees redirect unused time toward student loans or HSAs instead of losing it altogether, and on-demand pay options that reduce reliance on costly emergency measures like payday loans. With 91% of employees saying they'd stay longer at a company offering benefits tailored to their needs, Whalen argues the staffing firms that help clients build this kind of flexibility into their benefits strategy will have a real edge in 2026.

Read the full piece here: Top Trends Staffing Professionals Will Follow in 2026

Learn more today on how PTO Exchange can help your employees access their unused vacation safely and responsibly.

HR Future Personalized and Flexible Benefits No Longer Optional

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:12:39 GMT

Why personalized and flexible benefits are no longer optional

Employees have been navigating one disruption after another, the return-to-office shift, high inflation, and now rapid AI adoption reshaping day-to-day work. In a piece for HR Future, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen argues these overlapping changes have fundamentally shifted what employees expect from their benefits, and static, one-size-fits-all packages simply can't keep up anymore.

The scale of the problem is significant: over three-quarters of employees don't use all their allotted PTO, even though it represents real earned value. At the same time, 91% of employees say they'd be more likely to stay at a company offering personalized financial benefits, yet 80% of HR executives report getting requests for benefits they don't currently offer. Whalen points to convertible PTO as one clear fix, letting employees redirect unused time toward retirement, student loans, HSAs, or charitable giving instead of losing that value altogether.

He also highlights earned wage access as another growing tool for personalization, noting that 94% of workers say early access to pay would be genuinely valuable, helping people avoid costlier options like credit card debt or early retirement withdrawals when unexpected expenses come up. Whalen's broader point is that with nearly two-thirds of employees globally saying they'd trade some current benefits for more flexibility, personalization isn't a nice-to-have anymore, it's becoming the baseline expectation.

Read the full piece here: Why Personalized and Flexible Benefits Are No Longer Optional

The Wellnews Overburdened Health Care Workers

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:07:45 GMT

HR Teams Must Step Up to Support Overburdened Health Care Workers

The nurses' strike that shut down parts of New York City this past February, one of the largest and longest the city has seen in decades, was a stark reminder of just how overworked and underappreciated health care workers feel. In a commentary for The Well News, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen argues that HR teams in health care need to respond with real, concrete support, not just recognition.

The data backs up the urgency. Nearly two-thirds of nurses report significant stress and burnout, and only 60% say they'd choose nursing as a career again if given the choice. Whalen points to inadequate staffing, feeling undervalued, and insufficient pay and benefits as the top drivers pushing more than half of health care workers to consider leaving their roles in the next year, with serious downstream consequences for patient safety and care quality.

Whalen's recommendations center on flexibility: things like flexible scheduling, break and sleep rooms, and wellness support, alongside convertible PTO that lets health care workers direct the value of unused time off toward retirement contributions, HSAs, or student loan payments. He also highlights education support as a major lever, 60% of health care workers say they'd stay longer with an employer offering tuition assistance, and most would use PTO toward that goal if given the option.

Read the full commentary here: HR Teams Must Step Up to Support Overburdened Health Care Workers

HR Com HR Trends Defining 2026

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:03:07 GMT

How next-generation benefits will help HR teams attract top talent

Next-generation benefits are moving from nice-to-have to necessary, and PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen lays out why in a piece looking ahead at what will define 2026 for HR teams. Between rising healthcare costs, slower job growth, and rapid AI adoption reshaping roles, HR leaders face a year that demands more creative thinking about how they support their people, not just more spending.

A central theme is employee ownership of benefits. Whalen points to flexible options like convertible PTO, which let employees repurpose the value of unused time off toward whatever matters most to them, retirement contributions, health savings accounts, and more,rather than treating PTO as a static, use-it-or-lose-it line item. He also highlights earned wage access as a tool that helps employees avoid costly, high-risk stopgaps like payday loans or early 401(k) withdrawals when unexpected expenses hit.

The throughline across all five trends is that HR teams that help employees get their financial house in order will see the payoff directly: stronger loyalty, higher engagement, and a more resilient workforce heading into a genuinely uncertain year.

Read the full piece here: How Next-Generation Benefits Will Help HR Teams

HR Daily Advisor Ease Employee Financial Stress

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 02:57:21 GMT

Alleviating Financial Stress: How HR Teams Can Support Employees Amid Economic Turmoil

Rob Whalen talks to HR Daily Advisor on how HR teams can ease employee financial stress in 2026.

Employees are under real financial pressure this year, and it's showing up everywhere from productivity to retention. In a new piece for HR Daily Advisor, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen lays out why 2026 is shaping up to be an especially difficult year financially for the workforce, and what HR teams can actually do about it.

The numbers paint a clear picture: over three-quarters of employees report feeling stressed about the economy, two-thirds say they're living paycheck to paycheck, and total household debt has climbed past $18.5 trillion. Rising healthcare costs, elevated mortgage rates, and mounting student loan balances are compounding the pressure, and the effects are spilling directly into the workplace, 78% of employers say their employees' financial stress is hurting operations, and the majority of HR leaders worry this stress is pushing people to look for other jobs.

Whalen's argument is that HR teams need to respond with more than good intentions. That means financial mentoring, upskilling, earned wage access, and revisiting underused benefits like PTO. Convertible PTO in particular lets employees redirect the value of unused time toward emergency savings, retirement, or student loan payments, meeting a growing employee expectation for benefits that are actually personalized to their financial reality, not just offered as a blanket policy.

Read the full piece here: Alleviating Financial Stress: How HR Teams Can Support Employees Amid Economic Turmoil

Accounting Today Ticking PTO Time Bomb

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 02:52:11 GMT

How CFOs Can Defuse the Time Bomb of PTO Liabilities

Unused PTO isn't just a missed benefit for employees, it's a growing financial liability sitting quietly on company balance sheets. In a new piece for Accounting Today, PTO Exchange's Steve Armstrong breaks down just how large that liability has become, and why CFOs need to treat it as an urgent priority rather than a line item to manage passively.

The math is stark: PTO now represents roughly a quarter of total benefits costs, translating to about $7,600 per full-time employee. With only 22% of employees using all their available time off, that liability compounds year over year, an employee with just 32 unused hours at $50/hour creates a $1,600 balance sheet obligation, a number that multiplies fast across a workforce of any real size. States that ban "use it or lose it" policies only add to the exposure, while ad hoc cash-out programs can create their own tax and compliance risks under IRS constructive receipt rules.

Armstrong's core argument is that this requires both a cultural and a structural fix. Companies need to genuinely encourage employees to take the time off they've earned, while also giving them flexible, compliant ways to redirect unused PTO toward priorities like retirement contributions or student loan payments. Done right, this approach doesn't just reduce balance sheet risk, it directly addresses the financial stress driving disengagement and turnover across the workforce.

Read the full piece here: How CFOs Can Defuse the Time Bomb of PTO Liabilities

Employee Benefits Spotlights PTO Exchange

carmen@ptoexchange.com (Carmen Williams) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 02:45:42 GMT

Employees can now convert their PTO into other benefits

Employees left 33% of their paid time off unused in 2020, according to the U.S. Travel Association, a multimillion-dollar problem that PTO Exchange was built to solve. Employee Benefit News took a closer look at how the platform, founded by CEO Rob Whalen in 2017, gives employees more meaningful options for their unused vacation time than simply letting it disappear.

The piece highlights how PTO Exchange lets employees direct the value of leftover PTO toward things like retirement contributions or student loan payments, or even share extra time with a coworker in need. Whalen makes the underlying point directly: when PTO goes unused, that value effectively reverts to the company rather than the employee who earned it. "We're allowing employees to use this accrued productivity in the ways that they need," he says, whether that's emergency savings, retirement, or paying down debt.

The article also points to a deeper shift happening in the workforce, as remote work blurs the line between job and life, and financial pressures like student debt increasingly compete with vacation time for priority, static PTO policies simply haven't kept up. As Whalen puts it, PTO should belong to the employee, not sit as a line item on a company's books.

Read the full article here: Employees Can Now Convert Their PTO Into Other Benefits